When I was a child, I used to love the idea of getting into a plane, and flying to some exotic location for a wonderful holiday! I often thought, the longer the flight the better, and this was largely based on the idea that if the flight were longer (i.e. 8 hours from Nairobi to London), then there’s a much higher chance that there will be a television on the plane, and so a higher chance that I’d get to stay up the whole flight watching movies. While this basic principle is still true, and I still love staying up the whole flight watching movies, the appeal of travelling by air has seriously gone down.

The two main reasons for this: Security Checks and Little Children. Don’t get me wrong, I wholly understand the importance of the security checks, and am extremely grateful for them! Also, I love little children! I’m constantly helping babysit my cousins, and have such a great time doing it! But these two things have made travelling an insanely infuriating experience. You can take my recent trip home as an example of why. As you (hopefully) know, I recently started studying at a University in Toronto, Canada. This is a very long distance from where I live – Nairobi, Kenya. In order to travel between the two Countries, I usually have to take an 8 hour flight from Nairobi to either London or Amsterdam (depending on which airline I travel with), then from there take another 7 hour flight to Toronto. Total travel time, including the stop over and getting to the airport on time etc. is usually at least 25 hours.

Anyway, on Tuesday I flew from Toronto to Nairobi. I had to get to the airport by 4pm for my flight at 6:30 pm. I got onto the flight, and everything was going as normal. We took a little long to taxi, which is where the plane leaves the boarding gate, and drives towards the take-off strip. I didn’t think too much of it, and figured we would be flying on time. But nope – I was wrong. We waited at the strip for a good 25 minutes, when the Pilot announced that there was a problem with a missing passenger, and that we couldn’t take off until the issue was resolved. We then had to get back to the Boarding gate, and wait for the issue to be sorted out.

This confused me severely, because I had no idea who could be so important that the pilot would actually turn the plane around just to get them. Eventually, after waiting another 45 minutes at the gate, the pilot then announced that the issue had been resolved, and that it was a human error where the passenger was supposed to be far away from the airport (as in they had missed their flight), while he had somehow been checked in on the flight. Yup – major security issue. The pilot then announced that we were just waiting to refuel, and then we would be off. This whole debacle took over 2 hours. 2 hours without any form of snacks or drinks, 2 hours without the television working (they can’t switch it on since we’re not flying yet), 2 hours with the seat in front of me less than 15 cm from my face since these seats were designed without consideration of foot space, or the need for people to be able to move their heads.. and worst of all, 2 hours sitting next to these extremely large woman who practically had her right elbow pointing onto my chest the entire flight. Basically, I couldn’t move at all for the entire 7 hour flight, which somehow got extended into over 9 hours, due to a “missing passenger”. To make matters worse, the large woman next to me spent the entire flight talking to herself, and complaining about the delay.

The thing that worried me about the flight was that instead of landing at 7pm local Amsterdam time, we instead landed at 9:15pm, and took another 15 minutes to get to the gates and get off the flight. This was a major problem for me, since the boarding time for my second flight was at 9:15pm. Panic. Worry. Freak OUT! I pretty much ran off the first plane until I found out which Gate my second flight was at – quite literally opposite the gate of my first flight. This let me have a huge sigh of relief, since it meant I wouldn’t miss my flight. I got onto my second flight, got comfy, and ready for another 8 hours of TV watching (incase you haven’t guessed – I don’t usually sleep on planes…) when out of nowhere, this little kid in the row behind me lets out this ridiculous scream, and starts hitting himself. I don’t know why, where it came from, or what he hoped to achieve by screaming like an insane lunatic, but he did. And it continued for the entire flight! The Air Hostesses tried to talk to him and calm him down, and the pilot even passed by at one point to see what was going on, but no luck. The kid with lungs kept on screaming.

Needless to say, I had a very long journey home, but I made it! And I am finally back in my own comfortable, cozy bed, enjoying home made food after a really long time! I still concept of flying, the idea that we’re flying 30,000 feet in the air and trust our entire lives onto the “capable” hands of the pilot flying the plane. I just wish security checks and little children weren’t an integral part of flying! What about you – good or bad experiences?

There are 9 responses on “A Flight From Hell, Followed By Another One”

I really don’t like flying, it scares me so much! I think it might be because I have watched too many movies with plane crashes in them! I love being able to watch movies the whole entire ride! The worst experience I had was when I was sitting at the end of the row and an air hostess was walking by with a bottle of red wine and she split it all over my clothes which were white and brand new. She apologised so many times but I still felt a bit peeved 😛

Hi Aashni I love your website! I also HATE planes. I mean I don’t truly hate them, they are pretty fun and is much better then driving miles and riding a boat over sea to get somewhere. But honestly i can’t stand it. I feel kind of claustrophobic at times witch sucks because there is no way to get off the plane and go outside to breathe a little.
I’m sorry for your flight! That is no fun, having to wait two hours is a lot of time to wait. People have places to go, being 2 hours to wait is a lot if you are for instance a business man having to go to a meeting, or something else important. I also don’t really appreciate kids on planes either. I mean they can’t help that and i know the parents are trying to calm them down, but having a child cry the whole trip just sucks. Maybe the kid had autism or something he couldn’t help, unless of course he was on the plane alone then i have no idea what was wrong with him haha.
Anyways, I’m glad you had a safe trip back home. Canada to Kenya is a very long way i guess.
-Millie 🙂

So far I’ve not had many problems with flying.
When I was younger I used to get scared that I might end up in a plane-crash, but that seems quite silly now, since the chances of being in a plane-crash are 1 in 11,000,000, so you are more likely to die driving to the airport than on the plane.
The delays can be annoying too, but I’ve never had a flight delayed more than 2 hours, though usually they aren’t delayed at all.
I usually find a quiet seat in a quiet corner near quiet people, so I’ve never really had to put up with children throwing tantrums or people elbowing me either.

Sound like you had an awful time on your plane though, I hope your next flight goes a lot better! :3

yeeeeek 25 hours?! i wanted to shoot myself on my 17 hour flight, lol! @_@ but i know how you feel about rushing to your next flight!! friends and i were in Japan for our connecting flight and the airport was so foreign and big and we were like AHHH WHERE DO WE GO?!?! hahaha

sorry to hear about your experience with that kid! i hope you had headphones at least? he sounds like he might be autistic or something :O d’ahh i can’t sleep on planes either!! all my friends can pass out within minutes while i’m wide awake O_O

i mainly had a decent experience. it wasn’t bad since the delay was only 30 minutes max but in general, i hate flights because after i get off i feel so dead and groggy! haaha

Sorry to hear about the awful flight you have. *hugs* I haven’t had any experience like that since my first and 2nd plane ride took only 1 and a half hour but i’ve had experience with flights getting delayed because of some problems they had. When I came back home from Manila last year with my older brother, our flight got delayed for more than 3 or 4 hours i think and it was irritating but all we can do is wait and find ourselves something to entertain us other than looking to all those people walking to and fro inside the airport that gives you a headache. The 1 and a half hour flight home was all smooth but by the time we got to another city, it was already 6pm and it was raining and we had to travel by bus for another 3 hours to get to our city. It was exhausting. I can only imagine what you’ve gone through. I’m glad you didn’t have to endure another delays and miss your second flight. I hope you had a smooth flight back to Canada.

Aw, that sounds horrible! I’ve had MANY bad experiences in flights! Over the summer, my to the Dominican Republic to visit family was delayed while we were all boarded for about 2 hours because of some ‘issues’, and like you, they didn’t give us food or anything the entire time. But I’ve never had to endure a crazy screaming kid! I probably would’ve yelled at the kid until he shut up, haha xD
Flying really is stressful. I love cruising thousands of feet in the air, but I hate the whole ordeal you have to go through before it. Checking in luggage, going through all those security checks and everything. Ugh. They should have some sort of express system for frequent flyers or something. 😛

Hi Aashni! I didn’t know that you attended school in Toronto 🙂 I’m not a university student yet, but I visit U of T St. George every week.

I’m sorry to hear of the delay in departing. Several years ago, on a flight to Algeria (from Montreal), the folks at the airline messed up our tickets so that my family and I were separated — and I was only nine at the time. Unfortunately, my seat was next to a little kid who not only shrilled in my ears, but also had no concept of the “personal bubble.” Oh well, I got to watch Shrek 2. Did you happen to see any movies on your flight? Were they enjoyable? 🙂 I hope so!

That’s an isolated incident though, I’ve taken solo flights to Boston and have had the best time!

Nairobi must be beautiful! My father’s actually from Kenya. Did you visit any national parks during your trip?

It must have been such a boring experience for you right?
Children can be a bit irritating companions to travel with…i had such an experience today while going to college…there was a girl who got in on a station with her mother and was sitting right in front of me…till she came she was fine…but suddenly such started screaming and crying for something (i didn’t get what) luckily I had to get down very soon… hehe! how are you?